Both Shopify and WooCommerce are e-commerce platforms that allow merchants to create their online stores and sell online through websites or mobile apps. They both offer similar features and services such as inventory management, shipping options, marketing tools, etc. In this article you will get to know what should you choose between WooCommerce vs Shopify and WHY.
WooCommerce vs Shopify: Why this Comparison?
You’ve probably seen the coronavirus outbreak that has hit India over the past 2 years, causing an economic crisis across the country. The worst part is that the impact of COVID-19 in India is likely to last longer than anywhere else in the world because of its large population and low testing capacity. That means businesses in India have been shuttered for weeks now. But despite these challenges, the e-commerce industry has seen tremendous growth in the last 2 years and is expected to reach around 188 billion dollars by 2024.
The reason is that people who believed in offline shopping have changed their priorities and shifted to online shopping just to be safe. Hereby the small and medium businesses saw an opportunity to earn what they lost in the lockdowns and hence started creating their online store.
Introduction:
Choosing an e-commerce platform that will help you create an online store, and a website, and manage all aspects is the first and very important step. It needs proper research, knowledge of the market you are dealing in, and other required documents. And if you are someone looking for a perfect e-commerce builder and stuck between two choices, Shopify and WooCommerce, then after reading this article we will make sure you choose the one you are looking for.
WooCommerce vs Shopify: What are these Names?
WooCommerce is a free plugin specially designed for WordPress. It helps you fully convert your WordPress into a full-time e-commerce store. It makes running an online store simple, flexible and secure with obvious features like inventory and tax management, secure payments, and shipping integration.
On the other hand, Shopify is a global dedicated e-commerce platform that helps merchants to create their online stores with any technical knowledge. You will need not worry about the hosting, security, domain, etc as it will be covered in your subscription.
Shopify is a self-hosted platform that makes it more flexible and customizable than its competitor but it is the aspect from which it lags behind from WooCommerce.
Although you should never limit your online business to single platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify. You can also try your hands on India’s leading e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, and Meesho.
Features Which are Worth Comparing:
If you are confused, about which one you should choose, here is the list of aspects that will help you make your decision faster and better:
PRICING
The first and foremost concern while selecting an e-commerce platform to sell online is pricing. Both Shopify and WooCommerce come at competitive pricing. Although they are totally different in terms of the category they belong to.
WooCommerce:
Since it is a WordPress plugin, WooCommerce is available for free. But with a great option comes a great difficulty. You will have to take up a separate domain ( 860 bucks per year on average), and a hosting platform (200-300 bucks on average). You can refer to some big players like GoDaddy, Cheapname, etc.
It is obvious that you would not be needing every feature that is available, hence the price of WooCommerce may vary.
Shopify:
Since it is a self-hosted platform, it is available in the market with different packages. You can select the package that you may find worth your money.
Here is the list of Shopify’s subscriptions that are available in India.
The Shopify subscription starts from Rs.2200 and can go up to Rs. 22680 if you opt for a premium plan.
User Interface:
Unlike Shopify, WooCommerce is not a self-hosted platform, which means you will have to manage things manually. From taking backups to making sure your store is safe and secure, it will be your task. Not only limited to this, but WooCommerce is also difficult to install and makes you watch some videos on youtube.
On the other hand, Shopify is very organized and can help you create your online store within minutes. It is the user interface that lets a merchant create, manage, and market the online store quite easily.
Comparatively, WooCommerce needs more technical expertise in the long run. Although both the platforms require some technical skills, if you don’t have them, you might take the help of a web developer and spend some of your hard-earned money on it.
Themes and Design Templates:
Themes and designs are something that is used as the prime strategy for attracting most customers. That is the reason, these platforms provide a wide range of themes and designs to enhance the in-store experience for the merchants and their customers.
Both of these platforms provide many options to select from. Shopify has over 100+ paid and free ready-to-implement designs made by the world’s best website designers. Being a widely used platform, the design is crystal clear, sharp, and catchy. These are highly customizable through the Shopify admin section by using liquid code.
On the other, WooCommerce provides a variety of themes and designs which can be referred to as a treat to your eyes. These designs are both mobile and web-friendly but may take time to set up, as every plugin has its different UX.
If you are looking for highly customizable themes, Shopify will be a good option for you. But if you want to experiment or try different looks with your online store, WooCommerce is your thing.
Last but not the least, Shopify limits you to its own theme store, whereas with WooCommerce, you can opt for a huge number of beautiful designs made by the developer community.
Inventory Management:
Both the platforms provide full-fledged inventory management for their customers. WooCommerce lets you create, and manage inventory reports. You might need the help of other applications for a detailed analysis of your store.
Shopify provides some rock-solid features like stock alerts, automated purchase orders, in-house revenue reports, and much more. While creating a store, you can add a single or many products at a time by uploading a CSV file.
SEO:
Search Engine Optimization has become one of the major factors on which a merchant decides which e-commerce platform he or she should opt for.
Since WooCommerce is built on WordPress, it has an upper hand on SEO as compared to Shopify. It is highly customizable and can allow you to edit meta tags, metadata, and other elements with great ease. Also, you can integrate a number of plugins for SEO in WooCommerce.
On the other hand, Shopify lags a bit in terms of SEO. Since Shopify has a hard URL structure it makes it difficult to curate an SEO-friendly online store. But Shopify provides all the features which are required for e-commerce SEO.
Integrations:
Integrations are believed to make the life of businessmen easier. Both of them can be compared when we talk about integrations.
On Shopify, you can easily integrate a shop on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Google. Shopify is known for its smoothest operations of these.
On the other hand, WooCommerce includes all the channels since it is based on WordPress, but it does not include Google Shopping.
Apps And Plugins:
Talking about apps and plugins, both Shopify and WooCommerce have a variety that will definitely be going to impress you. With all these plugins and apps, you can perform 10x better in your business. Whether it is managing the business or the sales, it is going to help in all aspects.
WooCommerce has access to around 60,000 free and paid plugins and over 600 extensions specially designed for e-commerce that will meet all your queries irrespective of the category. It can be marketing, logistics, or technical.
On the other hand, Shopify has around 5900 apps and extensions that are mastered in inventory management, shipping, sales, marketing, tracking, and so on.
Payment Gateways:
The most fun and important part of a business is receiving the money for the exchange of a product or service given to the customer. But without a payment gateway doing an online business can be a task at hand.
Both Shopify and WooCommerce provide many global and local payment gateways as an integration just to reduce the hustle in a businessman’s life.
Shopify has integrated more than 100 payment gateways. But you will have to think before using them as you will have to pay a 0.5-2% transaction fee depending on the monthly plan you buy. the higher the plan you choose, the higher the transaction fee you have to pay to Shopify.
WooCommerce on the other side has partnered with two default gateways, PayPal and Stripe. It also gives chances to other regional companies and does not charge any transaction fee as Shopify does.
Security:
If you are willing to start an online business, security is one of the most important aspects that should be planned before selling online. Both the platforms are secured, but,
With WooCommerce the security lies in your own hands which means creating an SSL certificate by yourself, configuring your site security plugins, two-factor authentication, firewalls, and other safety aspects as well.
Unlike WooCommerce, Shopify comes with all the security and updates at the backend. It comes with a built-in SSL certificate which ensures you are on the safer side and all your important data is safe with them.
Our Verdict:
Choosing one of these completely depends on your requirements and the category of your business. If you are looking for a platform that is flexible, scalable, and has handy SEO features, WooCommerce is the one you are looking for.
And if you are looking for a more defined design with marketing tools, a smart layout, and a good amount of traffic, you may be looking for a Shopify Subscription.
But one thing that you should consider is: Both of these platforms require technical skills and if not gained would cost you a hefty amount in maintaining your online store. But there is a solution to this as well, you can choose a no-code website builder like QPe which is a one-stop solution to all your requirements. Whether it is your online store’s marketing, any change on the website/digital store, security, payment gateways, integrations, analytics, inventory, price, or themes, you can get things done all by yourself without any technical knowledge.
Why QPe?
QPe is a SaaS-based platform that allows merchants to create online store in just 20 seconds. If you are someone who is looking for a platform that has flexibility, scalability, SEO features, hands-on design, marketing tools, good designs and templates, all important integrations, a variety of plugins, an easy user interface, and a secured platform that too at a very reasonable price in India, Qpe is the one for you.
Why QPe Over Shopify And WooCommerce?
- Unlike Shopify and WooCommerce, QPe does not require any sound knowledge of technology and can be easily maintained by the store owner.
- We offer a self-hosted secure platform with flexibility and SEO optimized store.
- We have a strong base of potential Indian customers who might become your go-to customer forever.
- We offer all the features that these platforms are providing at a very competitive price.
